Petra's Story
by TheSnowOfWinter
Summary: Ender's Game oneshot. Story about Petra's past. Petra is a normal girl going to a normal school,an encounter of a fight changes her life forever.


**Disclaimer: Ender's Game is not mine,the plot is mine. This is a project for English class,titled "Write Fanfiction for Ender's Game". It's unfair,all the other H+ classes got to write what they wanted to write! If you see this,Mr. Luke,which you probably won't, this is mine! Mine! **

**Statement: This is totally not my writing style...**

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><p>Petra's ears perked up. She had a love of eavesdropping. Her eyes stayed trained to her desk. The first rule of eavesdropping was to not let the people know you were eavesdropping on them.<p>

"I did too. The rumour is that he was switched for a launchy named Ender." The other boy said.

Petra resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. It wasn't heard of. Was Bonzo stupid? He traded a toon leader for a launchy?

"I heard that rumour, too. I also heard that he broke the arm of another launchy." Kryle, the boy who started the conversation added.

"And that he had beaten one of the older kids in the game room two to one, and it was his first time!" The other boy, Jillyn, continued.

"And that he had drawn a tie against one of the teams when his team was losing!" Kryle pursued.

Petra laughed silently to herself.

Man, this launchy was good.

The boys sent her a strange look which she saw through the corner of her eye. Petra pretended to be engrossed in whatever was on her desk. The boys continued to talk, but in a whisper. Petra had to strain her ears to catch what they were saying.

"I heard that he is a Third." Jillyn said in a disgusted voice. A memory suddenly flashed before Petra's eyes.  
><em><br>Petra rubbed at her bruises as she made her way to the playground._

_In one hand, she held her makeshift weapon. In another, she carried her desk._

_Neil, her older brother, had hit her again yesterday. It hurt._

_Neil was always the better of the Arkanian siblings. He could hit better, he was smarter, and the only thing he was slightly bad at was shooting, though he was still better then Petra. Petra was the invisible one; she was also the only one who saw the real Neil. No matter how she tried, she was never better than Neil at anything, and he knew that. A few times per week, he would come home looking incredibly peaceful, but once he was alone or with Petra, he would drop his façade. On the worse days, Petra would go to sleep with bruises and cuts all over her body. There was nothing she could do; she was weaker, always weaker. _

_A cry of pain disrupted her from her thoughts._

_Out of curiosity, she walked toward the sound. The cries continued, but no one seemed to notice or care. She came upon a terrible scene. A boy stood in front of another boy. The other boy lay on the ground, crying, and presumably bleeding. Even as the little boy, who she recognized as Nyle, one of the only Thirds at school, cried out, the bully just kept kicking him._

_Petra knew this scene, it was so familiar. She knew who she had thought of; it was Neil and her all over again. A sudden wave of courage went through her, maybe she wasn't strong enough to stop Neil, but she could possibly stop this bully. She slinked closer to fight, and she heard insults coming from the bully. _

"_What are you going to do, you Third? You can't beat me!"_

_"You Thirds are ludicrous, I don't get why your parents would want you useless things!"_

_"Maybe I'll help your parents get rid of you disappointment!"_

_Every insult felt like a slash to her heart, even if it wasn't really her he was aiming his insults at. But as she stepped closer and closer, she felt her courage draining. What was she doing? She couldn't possibly beat this boy! She was a girl, and she was both younger and weaker than him. _

_At last, when she finally stepped in front of the boy, all she could do was whisper meekly, "Stop!"_

_The boy looked at her; the look on his face was of disgust. Then his face changed, and he sneered. _

"_You think you can stop me? You're a weak girl! You better back off before I do the same thing to you as I've done to this poor Third here." The boy said in a mocking tone. Petra felt her remaining courage fade away; it took all of her will to not run away. _

_The boy raised an eyebrow, and said, "Alright then, you asked for it." _

_He advanced on her, pushed her onto the ground, kicked her once or twice in the stomach, and spit on her. After all of that, he laughed and kicked poor Nyle once more before sauntering away. Petra sat up and gave him the stink eye before the pain washed over and took with it what was left of her bravery and pride. _

_She cried; something she never did, not when Neil had taken out his anger on her, not when she had broken her arm when she fell off the slide, not even when her parents ignored her and pretended that she wasn't their daughter because she was such a disappointment._

_Why she cried? Because she knew that she was weak, so powerless, and too fragile. And she swore, at that moment, that she would do whatever she could to become better, to become noticed. _

_The rest of the day was a blur. She remembered being sent to the clinic, and she remembered hearing that Nyle would never be able to walk again. She remembered her brother coming in, looking very worried, seeing her, walking up to her, hugging her, and whispering into her ear, "See? You're too weak. You'll never beat me." _

_She remembered seeing the bully. She remembered how he said that the fight was out of self-protection, and she remembered how the adults had believed him. She remembered going home that day, her parents not even bothering to look up to ask why she was injured. The only way to let out pain for her after the incident was to train, train, and train. Her heart had hardened; she wasn't the girl she was before. Nothing would change that, ever, again. _

Petra came out of the memory quite suddenly.

It wasn't a thing she did often, remembering.

She realized that she had missed out on the rest of the conversation.

Looking toward the doorway, she saw a little boy; she immediately knew that this was the boy, Ender, the Third.

As she walked toward him, she swore, inside her mind, that she would not let the same thing that happened to Nyle happen to this little boy, no matter what.

She hid the memory into the back of her head once again; there was no reason to think about her past. Battle School was her everything now, there was no going back, and she didn't want to go back.


End file.
